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NHS patient data to be made available for sale to drug and insurance firms

theguardian.com

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Re: NHS patient data to be made available for sale to drug and insurance firms

#41

Post by tomp »

Silhouette wrote: post #39
tomp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an ideal society, I totally agree. However, in today's world, such data will mostly be exploited by health insurance companies, credit rating agencies, employers, and paparazzi. Unless, of course, the government(s) pass laws that protect the rights of the people and limit the influence of the industry, but that is rather the opposite of what has been happening recently.

It's not so much health insurance companies I'm worried about, as they will probably have access to medical information about their clients anyway, and organisations like BUPA probably do take patient confidentiality seriously. I'm more concerned about other forms of insurance, and about links to people related to you and not you personally. For example, what if people start getting a higher car insurance quote becau…

I agree, except for the last one, which I'm not concerned about - in an open/transparent society, such "problems" (slut/drug abuser/B&D/...) would not be considered problems any more, but only "life phases"/"exploration periods"/"lifestyles" - after all, when everybody is "weird" in one way or another, nobody is really weird any more.

It's only the commercial exploitation I'm worried about - it has a lot of potential to meaningfully impact human lives, usually for the worse, and often because of things said humans have no influence on.

Though for those living in totalitarian/fascist societies (e.g. gays in Putin's Russia) have much better reasons to be concerned.

Re: NHS patient data to be made available for sale to drug and insurance firms

#42

Post by xedarius »

This information will only be used to cause harm and bring misery to people when they need help the most.

I have private medical insurance through my work. Last year I made two claims, which were covered by the insurance company. However after the second claim they sent me a letter requesting access to my medical records. Obviously I told them to fuck off as they're an insurance company and have no business poking through my medial history.

This data probably shouldn't ever exist, but if it's going to, it should be anonymous.

Going to see if I can opt out ... somehow.

Re: NHS patient data to be made available for sale to drug and insurance firms

#43

Post by christoph »

xedarius wrote: post #42

This information will only be used to cause harm and bring misery to people when they need help the most. I have private medical insurance through my work. Last year I made two claims, which were covered by the insurance company. However after the second claim they sent me a letter requesting access to my medical records. Obviously I told them to fuck off as they're an insurance company and have no business poking th…

You can. I did.

http://medconfidential.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/careda...

"Once uploaded, you will not be able to get this data deleted by the HSCIC. So if you want to opt out, you need to act now"

Re: NHS patient data to be made available for sale to drug and insurance firms

#44

Post by dalore »

gmac wrote: post #7
nodata wrote: post #2

"The extracted information will contain NHS numbers, date of birth, postcode, ethnicity and gender." Yikes! Date of birth AND postcode? Pseudoanonymous that is not.

Indeed (for info, for those based elsewhere, a UK postcode covers about 15 households on average).

Do they mean full postcode or just the first part though? Both are called postcodes.

Re: NHS patient data to be made available for sale to drug and insurance firms

#45

Post by pbhjpbhj »

exDM69 wrote: post #13
nodata wrote: post #2

"The extracted information will contain NHS numbers, date of birth, postcode, ethnicity and gender." Yikes! Date of birth AND postcode? Pseudoanonymous that is not.

Even if this data (date of birth, postcode, etc) would be removed, it would still be rather trivial for e.g. an insurance company to match these records to their customers. Given one or two insurance claims for doctor's appointments, matching the medical records for identical dates is enough to pinpoint a person with adequate certainty. Then the insurance company can grep the records for mentions of smoking, drinking…

Or perhaps just a rare disease/disorder and some other data-point would be enough to de-anonymise some data. It'd be like a massive sudoku ...

Re: NHS patient data to be made available for sale to drug and insurance firms

#47

Post by xedarius »

christoph wrote: post #43
xedarius wrote: post #42

This information will only be used to cause harm and bring misery to people when they need help the most. I have private medical insurance through my work. Last year I made two claims, which were covered by the insurance company. However after the second claim they sent me a letter requesting access to my medical records. Obviously I told them to fuck off as they're an insurance company and have no business poking th…

You can. I did. http://medconfidential.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/careda... "Once uploaded, you will not be able to get this data deleted by the HSCIC. So if you want to opt out, you need to act now"

Thanks for the link.

Re: NHS patient data to be made available for sale to drug and insurance firms

#48

Post by Angostura »

xedarius wrote: post #42

This information will only be used to cause harm and bring misery to people when they need help the most. I have private medical insurance through my work. Last year I made two claims, which were covered by the insurance company. However after the second claim they sent me a letter requesting access to my medical records. Obviously I told them to fuck off as they're an insurance company and have no business poking th…

This information could invaluable to the medical research community as a whole and shouldnt have any adverse consequences for individual patients if suitably anonymised.

Currently I don't have sufficient information to judge whether I need to opt out or not so I'm withholding judgemeny.

Re: NHS patient data to be made available for sale to drug and insurance firms

#49

Post by gmac »

dalore wrote: post #44
gmac wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed (for info, for those based elsewhere, a UK postcode covers about 15 households on average).

Do they mean full postcode or just the first part though? Both are called postcodes.

Good question, but if they mean the first part only then calling it a postcode would be rather sloppy (this ought really to be called a postcode area or district[1]).

On a similar note, it seems ludicrous to provide a full date of birth rather than the year alone.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcodes_in_the_United_Kingdom...

Re: NHS patient data to be made available for sale to drug and insurance firms

#50

Post by rahimnathwani »

gmac wrote: post #7
nodata wrote: post #2

"The extracted information will contain NHS numbers, date of birth, postcode, ethnicity and gender." Yikes! Date of birth AND postcode? Pseudoanonymous that is not.

Indeed (for info, for those based elsewhere, a UK postcode covers about 15 households on average).

The range is wide, though. I've seen at least one residential postcode which covers just two addresses.
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